


The Banshee of King's Island

by Cuda (Scylla)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Emotional Roller Coaster, Hex Bags, Love Confessions, M/M, Monster of the Week, Mutual Pining, Roller Coasters, Sastiel - Freeform, Sastiel Creations Challenge, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2019-05-17 03:59:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14824856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scylla/pseuds/Cuda
Summary: When Dean prescribes a road trip to help Sam and Castiel clear up a misunderstanding, he has the best of intentions. Seriously, when he said theme park, he meant Universal Studios, Florida. Not some place in creepy Murdertown, Ohio, where people end up dead on a rollercoaster.





	The Banshee of King's Island

**Author's Note:**

> My prompt for Round 4 of the Sastiel Creation Challenge was "Banshee." The planning started like usual, and then suddenly I was watching rollercoaster videos on YouTube. I seriously do not know how I got here. Help.

Sam's boot soles vibrated as his phone rang, startling him out of the relative quiet. He fumbled for his phone, putting it on speaker as soon as he spotted the Caller ID. "What's happening, Cas?"

"It started up, Sam," Castiel said, voice small on the other end of the line and tight with anxiety, "it's coming your way. Fast."

Sam's eyes dropped down between his boots, through the thick pipe track to the yards of open air below. A chill swept under his ribs. "Can you stop it?"

Through the phone, Sam heard metal clicks, followed by an angry electric buzzer. "I've tried," Castiel said through gritted teeth, "Sam, get off that track. I don't know when it's going to reach you—"

The Banshee rolled down out of the fog like a hawk, eyes on fire, clawing for Sam with airbrushed fiberglass nails.

Sam thought he had more time. But the fog was thick. When Sam had last been on a track like this, he was thirteen, and rollercoasters were a hell of a lot noisier.

He was screwed. Caught on the tracks, at the foot of a massive loop. The train was on him in less than the time it took to blink.

The Banshee whizzed by, the force of her passing nearly strong enough to knock him down. Up she went again, into the fog, and the track under Sam's feet vibrated harder than before.

There was no time to guess. Sam dropped his flashlight, shoved his phone into his pocket, spun and launched out into empty air. For a sickening breath, he felt the night yawn open under the arc of his leap. Then the steel pipe ribs of the Banshee's track slapped his forearms, and with a scramble, stinging hands found purchase. The shotgun strapped to his back kept moving for a second longer, jerking him sideways. Sam kicked one knee around the ribs of the track, and the owl-silent rollercoaster blew behind him again.

His cellphone wormed out of his back pocket, hitting the asphalt below with a crunch and a miniature explosion of glass.

"Fuck," Sam muttered, then laughed. Fear soaked the absurdity, sharpened it, until the idea of being killed by a haunted rollercoaster seemed like a fantastic joke.

Rollercoasters were about fear. Fear was their bread and butter; their reason for existence. The only reason to get on one of these things was to feel a heartbeat away from certain death. He never really expected to find a haunted one. It wasn't that amusement parks lacked their share of traumatic deaths or ghosts.

It just seemed too, well, _obvious_.

Sam grunted his way topside, squeezing through the support ribs. He scaled the next hill, hand over hand like a jungle gym in a city park, focused on the nearing service ladder. There, he'd be safe enough to regroup.

He wondered where Castiel was. Wondered if he was safe.

* * *

The Banshee - one of King's Island's biggest attractions - had been closed down for the past week, while the park coordinated police investigations, state and national safety inspections, and battled a hurricane of bad press.

Thirteen people strapped into the Banshee for its last run of a busy Memorial Day weekend. When it glided back into the dock, only six people walked off the platform on their own steam.

Seven of the riders were dead on arrival.

Every brain showed trauma, as if from a heavy blow. But the skulls were intact. The passengers around them - even next to them - were fine.

It didn't really sound like a vengeful spirit. Too many people at once, for one thing. Not bloody enough, for another. A few people had been hurt on the rollercoaster that once occupied the ground where the Banshee now sat, but nothing to warrant this kind of mayhem.

It didn't really fit the profile of any monster Sam knew, actually.

Which meant magic. And magic couldn't be summoned. You couldn't make a hex bag angry enough to come down and fight you. Curses had to be found.

Castiel pointed this out over breakfast, eyes on his cup of coffee.

His eyes seemed to be everywhere but on Sam these days.

Hex bags also couldn't move on their own, Sam countered; they could only do what they'd been made to do. If they found the source, they could keep other people from getting hurt.

Seven people were already dead, Castiel said, hefting skeptical eyebows at the innocent mug of coffee. If the theme park had even a shred of self preservation, they'd never turn the rollercoaster on again.

Annoyed as he was, Sam could see Castiel's point. But even if the witch responsible qualified as chaotic evil, seven was still a lot of people to wipe out in one night without a reason. If they didn't find the reason - and, hopefully, the witch - it could go on happening.

Castiel slid his coffee away from him, touching the lip of the mug. His jaw pulsed, both like - and unlike - Dean. He kept dodging Sam's eyes, but it was clear he couldn't dismiss the possibility.

Castiel hated that, just as clearly.

In the parking lot of the diner, Sam called Dean.

"You know," Dean sighed, "when I told you to take him to a theme park, this is not what I meant."

"I know—"

"I meant Universal Studios. I meant, go to Wizarding World, get him a wand, do the Transformers ride, feed him cotton candy. There should not be theme parks in Ohio. That state is full of freaky shit."

Sam propped his elbows on the hood of the truck and rubbed his eyes. "This isn't what I had planned, either."

"Good, because I'm pretty sure I said 'Florida,' so I'm glad I didn't actually say 'witches.' I was starting to worry there."

Peeking over one hunched shoulder, Sam watched Castiel, under a tree at the edge of the parking lot. His back was to Sam, spine stiff, shoulders squared and hands deep in his pockets.

"I can handle this myself," Sam muttered, wondering about the range of angel hearing, "The hardest part is the security. Once we're in, we'll check the grounds; run some tests, in and out. If we find anything, I'll call."

"You interview the witnesses?"

"We did."

"'We?'" Dean echoed, "and how'd _that_ go?"

Sam closed his eyes and ducked, scrubbing the bridge of his nose with his thumb. "About as well as you think."

A little pause on the other end of the line, then. "Okay. I'm gonna throw a bag in the car and be there in a day. This thing sounds big, whatever it is. And you've already got your hands full."

Sam sneaked another glance in Castiel's direction.

Castiel walked towards him, already halfway back to the truck. His hands were still in his pockets, eyes on the sky.

"Thanks," Sam told Dean, and straightened, "I'll let you know what we find tonight."

* * *

Vibrations rattled the steel around Sam once again. The sensation intensified, until Sam's body hummed to the core of his bones. He watched the empty cars glide by overhead. Was it just him, or was it faster this time?

A voice drifted up from far below.

"Sam! SAM!"

Sam looked down.

Somewhere at the foot of the service ladder was Castiel, lost in the dark and the rolling fog. "Are you all right?" Castiel shouted.

More or less, Sam thought. "Did you figure out a way to stop it?"

"No," Castiel replied, "come down."

A hard little knot tightened in Sam's chest. "I'm almost done."

Castiel's voice hardened. "No! You're out of time!"

The Banshee whizzed by for the third time in less than ten minutes, trailing wind like the tail of a comet. Vibrations rocked the trusses, forcing Sam to hook an arm and a knee over the rungs.

Around him, the steel began to scream and buck. Red light illuminated the fog in billowing flashes. The plan was well and truly fucked.

Could be worse, all things considered. He could already be dead.

Sam started down the ladder. His progress was slow, as every few seconds another tremor shook the bars. The Banshee was really cooking, whirring like an angry insect all around him as it swept around the corkscrew turns. One false move could send it hurtling off into the night. Beyond the high-pitched roars of the twisting metal, Sam heard alarms - and a deeper thrum at the center.

An animal thrum. Like a purr. Or a low growl.

The space beneath the center of the track was glowing now, intense enough for Sam to see it through the fog. The swirls of vapor turned in a lazy circle, widening with every pattern the Banshee completed. And within that circle, a massive thing moved. As Sam squinted, its edges grew more distinct; the scales on its heavy muzzle glittering as it tossed its horned head.

An answering glow came from where Sam had been minutes ago, tucked between the top of the service ladder and the track. A ball of light, pulsing red, and small enough to fit in his hand.

Sam took a deep breath, and lunged up the ladder.

Until the rungs twisted away from his feet, and he slipped. His hands stung, arms shook as he struggled to keep his grip. He kicked for the ladder, and caught nothing but air.

He was falling.

He was done.

* * *

Castiel's refusal came gently, and the more awful for that. "I noticed, Sam. I'm not as oblivious as you believe."

With the last flops of a dying fish, Sam's heart let go; slid into his boots. Adrenaline spiked a second time, for all the wrong reasons. "You could have said something."

"I was hoping you'd move on."

Sentences like that should come with a bullet between the eyes. A nice, clean, instantaneous end of existence.

Instead, with the blue eyes on him like search beams, Sam had to find something to say. Something calm. Something understanding.

"Oh," was the best Sam could do in the moment. He groped after words, body burning to leave. "Okay. Sorry, I misread you."

Those searching eyes turned up a few watts before Castiel hid them. "Your reading is perfect, Sam," he said, studying the salt and pepper tabletop between them. "But I can't be what you need."

Sam pressed his fingers to the facets of the soda glass in front of him, rotating it a half inch at a time. "Can um," he started, and took a slow breath, "can I be the judge of that?"

"You deserve humanity. That's… out of my experience."

"What, being human? Cas, you're doing fine. But what's that got to do with anything?"

"Nothing will be easy," Castiel protested, voice rising, "you've had partners. You have expectations. I'm going to disappoint you."

"I don't have expectations," Sam said, "I know you're not human. It doesn't change anything."

The slant of Castiel's head called bullshit.

"I don't know how this works," Castiel replied, gesturing between them, "All I've ever done is watch. I've never… applied."

Sensing an opportunity, a chink in the armor, Sam leaped. Maybe a little too fast, in hindsight, but when it came to interpersonal stuff he'd gotten very tired of being deliberate. "It's okay that you don't know, Castiel. I mean, I'm not great at this either - pretty crappy, actually. But if you're confused about something, I can show you—"

Castiel crumpled forward into himself, shoulders hunched and lost in the deep folds of his coat. His arms curled around one another, into the smallest of targets. "I'm tired of being taught. And you'll be tired of teaching. I'm sorry, Sam. I can't. If you need me to stay away, I understand—"

The words were a Brillo pad to the inside of Sam's skin. He got to his feet, and pushed his chair in with overdone care. "No," he said, taking time to breathe between each sentence, "I don't understand. But it's okay. Just… don't do that. No," he added hastily, holding out a quelling hand as Castiel started to get up as well, "I need a minute to myself first. I'll be all right. Just… give me a minute."

The muggy May evening folded around him as the doors closed at his back.

* * *

A hard hand banded around Sam's ankle, and shoved his foot back onto the rungs. Sam looked under his arm.

Teeth bared, Castiel locked blue-white eyes on him.

"I need to get up there!" Sam shouted at him.

Castiel nodded once. "I have you," he answered, snarling as the power strangling the rollercoaster tried to shake him loose, "Go, Sam!"

They moved together. With Castiel behind him on the ladder, Sam's mind quieted. There was no time for anything else but trust.

He stretched for the glowing hex bag, sawing at it with both hands. Castiel anchored him; pinned him to the bars of the shuddering ladder.

A last vicious jerk snapped it from its place. It lay in his palm, big as a baseball, pulsing red like a beating heart.

Sam passed the hex bag to Castiel.

Castiel incinerated it.

A shock wave blew out across the track. It shoved Sam off the ladder, taking Castiel with him.

The Banshee wound down like a tired music box.

* * *

"I don't know, maybe you guys need a road trip."

Dean slouched across the foot of his bed, digging into a bag of pretzels, while Sam folded himself into the armchair across from him. The door was shut and it was just the two of them, because apparently Sam's broken-hearted moping was obvious even on double secret emotional lockdown. Dean knew people, and Dean knew Sam better than he knew people, so in hindsight it was just a matter of time.

"Being trapped in a car for twelve hours a day? Yeah. Maybe if we needed to make things even worse," Sam said, wincing as he caught the sullen teenager creeping back into his voice. Hello there, unprocessed adolescent rage. It's been a minute.

He was better than this.

He also hadn't had a relationship in a long time. And Sam's stupid chessmaster brain had forwarded him so far into what a relationship with Castiel might be like before he'd said a word, being turned down felt like being dumped.

Dean rolled onto his back and flicked a pretzel at him. "This is really dumb, Sam. You know that, right?"

"Gee, thanks," Sam muttered, caught the pretzel, and popped it into his mouth.

"The way I see it, you've got two choices. You deal, or you do something. 'Mope' is not doing something."

Since they were already in the Awkward Winchester Emotion Zone, Sam stopped to give it more than a passing thought. The path he wanted was pretty easy to decipher. As in, lined with orange road cones and flashing signs, easy.

Just like road cones, it made his stomach clench. Make one wrong move and veer into a pit deep enough to take geological core samples? Yeah, that about summed it up.

"Cas made it pretty clear," Sam said, cautious, and earned himself a sigh.

"I'm not suggesting you hit him over the head and drag him off," Dean argued, "you know what I mean. Watch a movie. Read your nerdy books together. I don't know, talk."

Sam dropped his eyes, lost in thought.

"And maybe realize there's more to this than the stuff Cas told you," Dean added after a few minutes of quiet, "with his wings clipped, he's kind of helpless, and he hates it. And you're high risk."

"I'm not helpless either, Dean," Sam reminded him.

"No," Dean replied, "but even this out of commission, unless he does something monumentally stupid - which, I mean," he waggled a hand, "even odds - he's gonna outlive us both. Meanwhile, we've got a permanent lights-out in our future. Soon, by his standards. On top of that, we've already been kidnapped a few times as leverage. His family finds out about you crazy kids, you're a target."

Sam sat with that observation for a while. Of course he'd thought about it. He'd been half-dating Castiel in his head for over a month now. He thought about his own death on a daily basis. Death was part of Sam's landscape; hell, Death even had a face. Death could hold conversations with him. The 'permanent lights-out,' as Dean described it, would be a relief. The shock of that realization wore off long ago.

But he'd never really thought about it from Castiel's perspective. Until now.

"I can't believe this level of insight is coming from you," Sam said with a laugh.

Dean groaned. "Hey, I have insight, I just choose not to use it," he said, smile fading a moment later, "Sorry it's been rough. You guys seemed headed in the same direction."

"You're okay with this," Sam said, nonplussed.

"Me? No I'm not okay with this, Sammy. This could blow up in all of our faces. But I always said if you were gonna pick somebody to settle down, pick one in the life."

"'Settle down?'" Sam echoed.

Dean snorted. "Oh, please. Don't make me draw you a flowchart. You've been in love with that weirdo since he showed up. You're just lucky I don't go for celestial nerds - he was totally into me first."

* * *

Sam's Earthward trajectory seemed to take weeks. He flew backward, spread-eagled, too stunned to do anything but fall. The Banshee receded, crumpling in on itself as the red light within it died.

Fingers closed on the rifle still strapped to his back, jerking him sideways, then scrabbled across his shirt and bound tight over his chest. Blue-white light filled the edges of Sam's vision, and he heard the rustle of dry leaves.

Castiel. His ragged wings wound around Sam as he clutched their bodies together, and a split second later they were skidding - then rolling - across the ground. Sam sprawled where physics dropped him, dazed and battered, ears still full of wind.

They'd been blown out to the edge of the woods and the rollercoaster's grounds, where it was still relatively dark and quiet. The shouts were getting louder, though, and strobing blue-red lights from behind the Banshee's fences told Sam they'd need to move soon.

"We did it," Sam groaned. His chest and back felt like he'd gone ten seconds on a bull; like his spine had been jammed up through his skull. He came to life, one limb at a time, and rolled over when the rude jab of the rifle at his back couldn't be ignored anymore. His right wrist refused to bear weight.

"Thanks to you," Castiel agreed, still splayed out on his back in the grass a few inches away, "please don't ever do that again."

With a huff of laughter, Sam turned towards him. "Are you all right, Cas?" he asked, gingerly touching the knee that brushed his hip.

"Are you?" Castiel echoed.

Sam shrugged. "Banged up my wrist. Otherwise, yeah."

The grass rustled as Castiel sat up. "I'm sorry. My wings are not what they once were." The words were quiet, hollow; all the energy scooped out of him. 

"Your wings saved my life," Sam replied, and let the hand on Castiel's knee become a tentative caress, "you don't need to apologize. But if you can get up, we need to move."

A third voice, sharp and wobbling, cut in before Castiel could answer. A flashlight beam lanced into Sam's eyes. "Stay where you are."

Sam ducked away from the light. "Hi, sorry? We don't know what happened, we just—"

"Don't bother," the stranger snapped, and was it Sam or did grief creep into their tone, "I saw you. You ruined everything. Who are you? Who sent you?"

Sam shaded his eyes. Just beyond the flashlight's glare, he could make out the bottom half of a tawny jumpsuit. He couldn't see a weapon - well - except for the flashlight in his face. "Nobody sent us," Sam said, feigning a calm he didn't feel, "Do you know what happened here? What that thing was?"

"That 'thing' was the dragon god," the summoner replied, "and I was about to have eternal life. Until you destroyed my work."

Behind him, out of the flashlight's beam, Sam heard Castiel moving. Sam got to his knees, then stood, and faced down the summoner at his full height.

'Down' being the operative word. The light reflected back onto the stranger before he bounced the beam back up into Sam's eyes.

He was tiny. And old.

And he'd killed seven people to summon a monster, Sam reminded himself.

"I told you to stay where you are!" the summoner shrilled.

Sam raised his hands, and shuffled a little to the side. "Look, I'm a hunter. My name's Sam," he said, with a little shock of elation as the old man turned to follow him, "And I can tell you that thing won't give you what you're after. No matter how good your magic is."

"It's not my magic!" the summoner shouted, "You think I'm smart enough to do magic? I wasted my whole life cleaning up other people's shit in this dump - you think I'd be here if I had the choice?"

Sam shifted a little further. "I get it. I get wanting out."

"No, you don't," the summoner retorted, lowering the flashlight at last, "you're young. You didn't waste your life sweeping up popcorn and diapers and scrubbing soda off of every goddamned flat surface. You can still get out."

"Sure pal," Sam muttered, as Castiel pinned him from behind.

* * *

The summoner's name was Dick.

Apt, that.

Dick Mayhew was a witch's rube, his worst fears and deepest grudges played like a violin. He didn't have a speck of any real skill with magic. He didn't even know what was in the hex bags he'd bought, and tied to the tracks.

"He will return," Castiel warned Dick, as they bound and dumped him in the narrow space behind the truck's front seat, "And when he finds you, you'll understand just how mortal you are."

"You mean you're not going to kill me?" Dick squeaked.

"Guess it's your lucky day, Dick," Sam answered.

They picked up their gear from the motel room and headed out of the city.

Ten minutes on the road, a thin voice registered from behind Castiel's seat. "Where… where are you taking me?"

"High ground," Castiel said. He closed his phone, having just finished a report to Dean. Sam's phone was a pile of glass shards, retrieved from the pavement underneath the rollercoaster.

"Your witch is probably pissed," Sam added, "he knows you failed, and he knows how to find you. So you're going to flush him out for us."

"How can he know?" Dick asked. Sam and Castiel traded a glance.

"What did you give him in exchange for the spell?" Castiel asked.

There was a pause. "Five hundred dollars," Dick said meekly.

"And?" Castiel demanded.

"And blood," Dick replied, "on the contract."

Castiel huffed, and Sam snorted. "Blood's better than a GPS tracker to a witch, my friend," Sam said, drumming the fingers of his wrapped wrist on the stick shift, "he's tailing us right now."

Beside him, Castiel's frame went tense. "Right now, Sam."

Sam twitched. "As in, _right now_ , right now?"

Over the road noise, Sam heard screeching rubber. A black sports car pealed off of an intersecting rural road with a roar. Its headlights lanced into the cab of the truck.

"That's him," Castiel reported.

"I guessed."

The pickup wasn't made for high-speed chases. Sam took some creative liberties with his driving, and launched into the first unfenced cornfield. The plants were young, the dirt between the rows still soft, but the truck's four-wheel drive seemed up to the challenge. They left a spray of dirt and sheared corn plants behind them. The sports car didn't follow, but the moon illuminated the fog of gravel dust it left as it ducked down another road.

So much for the element of surprise.

Sam's mind raced.

"Let me handle him," Castiel said, as they reached the edge of the field. A border of timber and brush separated it from the next field over, "You're injured and right eye dominant; you shouldn't fire a weapon like that." He nodded to the bandaged hand.

Sam hated to admit it, but he was right. His accuracy left handed wasn't great, and he was slow in spite of practice. Dean was better; the asshole was ambidextrous when it came to firearms.

"Maybe not the pistol, but I can manage a rifle. And you took the brunt of that fall, Cas," Sam argued, "you sure you're up to it?" He turned off the engine.

"If I'm not," Castiel said, in a voice that could match the shadows, "save my ass."

Sam snagged his rifle as they piled out of the truck, and legged it into the trees. He hunkered down in light cover where the ground banked down towards a narrow creek. Sam's shoulder took the rifle's weight, and his trigger finger still worked even if his wrist screamed at the slightest pressure. Gnats and mosquitoes descended the moment he stopped moving. The witch had to know Castiel wasn't alone. He'd be watching the tree line. Sam couldn't even afford to twitch. 

Awesome, Sam snarled inwardly, as pinpricks of pain sparked up and down his back and arms, enjoy the free buffet you little assholes.

Castiel left Dick the Dragon God Summoner trussed up in the truck, and paced around the perimeter of the vehicle, waiting for the witch to show. Sam realized too late that he hadn't counted on just how pissed - or how powerful - their target was.

Castiel froze, then flew backward, slamming into the passenger side of the truck hard enough to shatter the windows.

He crumpled. Sam smothered a gasp.

He'd seen plenty of bizarre shit since he turned old enough to be included on hunts. That said, people floating in midair still triggered animal fear. Eyes on fire, red lightning wrapping him like a pet snake, the witch glided towards Castiel over the soft earth. The moonlight hemmed him in silver, the new leaves of corn rustling as he passed above.

He was beautiful. And terrifying. Sam kept the moon's glint off of his gun and breathed slowly.

Castiel came up, eyes white, shoulders square, blade in hand. The moisture in the air refracted the light of his Grace. Even weak as he was, Castiel glowed.

"You're a long way from home, Dorothy," the witch taunted.

"I've heard it before," Castiel said, "I assume you're here for your sycophant."

The air rippled around him. "Where is he?" the witch demanded.

"In the truck," Castiel replied.

"Give him to me," the witch said, stretching out his hands, "he failed his end of the contract. I am owed."

"Tell me your plans, and I might give him to you without a fight."

Sam heard a distinct, wobbly whimper from the cab of the truck.

The witch came to earth, gentle as a fallen leaf, a few steps away from Castiel. He saw a slender, translucent rod drop into the stranger's hand, sparking with a lacework of red energy. "Perhaps I'd prefer a fight," he said lightly, "his failure is your fault. And I haven't slain an angel in decades."

Sam adjusted his aim, a fraction of an inch at a time, adrenaline sour on the back of his tongue. The mosquitoes ceased to matter.

"I'll disappoint you," Castiel growled.

"Why? I've heard things. Seen things. Are you so weak, old thing?"

Sam caught the shift in Castiel's stance. "No," Castiel said, "I don't stay dead."

Reaching sideways, Sam groped blindly for a branch, and snapped it.

The witch's gaze raked the tree line. As his head turned, Castiel darted in, the angel blade a silver arc of light.

* * *

Sam didn't like to use absolutes for love.

Getting attached to anything meant liability.

Love meant Dean, because Sam didn't have control over that. Love meant Dad, because Dad was dead, and everything else had burned. Love meant Mom, because it was supposed to, even if it was a hazy kind of abstract. And only one of those three had the power to hurt him anymore.

Everything and everyone else was on negotiable terms, and acceptable levels. Levels he could afford to ditch.

Which meant he fell in real, non-negotiable love with Castiel by accident.

And that was just stupid. Teenagers fell in love by accident. Scarred, jaded adults could control their impulses, goddammit.

Sam recovered from the stomach butterflies but kept fantasizing about Castiel. Oddly, he didn't feel as guilty about the down-and-dirty sex scenes as the way he wanted Castiel to put an arm around him, so badly it hurt. Hurt like it'd feel better to just peel his skin off. Being close to Castiel got hard - and got other things hard - and the shit of it was that once he'd stopped getting a boner every time Castiel made eye contact, Sam kept wanting to be with him.

He played with the idea of being with Castiel, _with_ Castiel, for months. If having a boyfriend was a laptop, he'd call it troubleshooting.

But having a boyfriend was not a laptop.

Having an _imaginary_ boyfriend was more like a virus than a laptop.

Sam didn't have a moment when he knew he was in love with Castiel. Not one he remembered. The knowledge became a long-term ache that just - kind of fell out, on the wake of an electric shock realization that he was allowed to say something. There was a wild, exhilarating rush of realizing that if he wanted this, he could possibly have it, and damn the consequences. The imaginary boyfriend could turn into a real boy, no marionette strings or blue fairies required.

He should have known better. But like everyone kept telling him, he was a fucking optimist.

* * *

The battle was fast and brutal. Sam fought next to Castiel more often than he actually had the opportunity to watch. He appreciated Castiel's economy of motion. He fought with the single, short skewer-sword like an extension of his arm, and he had the drop on the witch from the beginning.

He might be an 'old thing,' but the old part of him - the ancient, deeply tired, and coldly merciless part of him - knew what to do with threats.

Another shock wave of red light pulsed across the field, and as the wind of it ruffled Sam's hair and pushed the mosquitoes away for a moment, he knew it was over.

Castiel stood over the witch's body, ready to go another round.

The field was silent around him, broken only by the cicadas and the soft sniffling of a frightened old man. Castiel's head tipped up, eyes to the sky, and he slid to his knees.

Sam burst out of the brush, slinging the rifle across his back again, and stumbled across the soft tilled earth and tangled roots.

He hit the dirt beside Castiel and pulled him up into his arms like a doll. Scorch marks blackened his face and hands, and singed his chest and ribs. "Cas? Come on, Cas," Sam pleaded.

Castiel's head lolled against his neck.

"Don't let go, Sam," Castiel said softly. The words hummed into Sam's skin, headed towards his heart.

Sam buried one hand in his hair. "No worries."

* * *

They let Dick the Dragon God Summoner go, but not before Castiel erased his memory. If he fiddled with Dick's general disposition, he didn't say - but the guy wandered off whistling, from the truck stop where they abandoned him.

Sam might care more, if he was a better person.

He was only a better person sometimes.

Castiel sat quietly in the battered pickup while Sam patched him up, swabbing dirt and char from his skin and applying burn salve to the worst. They'd have to boost a new truck - the passenger door didn't open anymore and the interior on that side was covered in chunks of glass.

"I'm sorry you have to do this," Castiel murmured.

There were several things Sam could have said. He went with the honest one. "You say that like I wouldn't like taking care of you."

Castiel tilted his head, as if searching for a faint, favorite song.

The moment turned to fragile glass in a breath. "Look, I know things might be different," Sam said, hesitant, "I know we're from two freaking different universes, and I know that'll make things harder. It's not that I'd love you anyway, or in spite of it, or whatever. I love you. I want to be with you. Not because you could be something I'm used to, or because you could protect me."

"I'm not asking for anything. You don't have to say no again. I'm just saying," Sam swallowed, and let himself have another slow breath, because what he was saying was true even if it was like digging his nails into an open wound. "I'm just saying, if you say yes, I'm—"

Castiel swooped in on him. He paused just short, forehead to Sam's forehead, and breathed him in, and then just - just went for Sam, like a thirsty man at the motherfucking well of Jacob.

"Yes," Castiel said, when they pulled apart. He dragged his bruised and battered body into Sam's lap, knees astride Sam's thighs, enveloping him like a mantling hawk.

"Yes?" Sam repeated, and every nerve seemed to fire at once.

There was an arm around his shoulders, warm and sure, and Sam gave a thick, wet gasp.

Castiel tightened his grip a little, and kissed Sam's forehead. "I haven't been able to let this go since you approached me with it. I knew you were suffering. So was I. After today, when I nearly lost you—"

His mouth found Sam's again, and never finished the sentence.

Dean woke them up the next morning, blaring Ohio Players' _Love Rollercoaster_ through the broken passenger window. Sam jerked awake at the brassy notes, found Castiel still curled against his chest, and laughed until he cried.

**Author's Note:**

> The Banshee is a real rollercoaster in King's Island amusement park, which is also real and not at all creepy. However, the land where The Banshee now sits has a colorful past - it's worth [a read on Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banshee_\(roller_coaster\)).
> 
> If you'd like to 'ride' The Banshee, [it's available on YouTube here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rD3rGlBS68s). If you have Google Cardboard or other VR goggles, it's very worth watching. I have a pair of cheap Polaroid VR goggles for my smartphone, and that plus a pair of headphones was a _trip_.


End file.
